Many greenfield ISPs contemplate using manual processes to manage service delivery on their fiber network. While this may work during the initial phases of the deployment (when the number of installs per day and the number of deployed customers are few), manual provisioning will put an increasing strain on operations over time. To help better understand the benefits of automation, consider that someone will need to manually update the OSS for telecom and BSS for telecom when…
- A new customer is installed
- Before the provisioning configuration can be entered, someone will need to determine the fiber end points, splitter port, and the VLANs for the fiber connection and record these somewhere, usually on an Excel spreadsheet. This process is typically referred to as “design-and-assign”.
- In addition to provisioning the fiber EMS, someone may also need to…
- Input information into the service router to configure the SAP on the appropriate VPLS for data service – e.g., lag number, VLAN, ingress policy, egress policy, etc.
- Input information into the stand-alone SIP server with customer-specific phone line information (e.g., SIP username, password, SIP domain, etc.)
- Update the ONT firmware (when installing a brand new ONT)
- Following the download of the current firmware version, the user will have to also initiate the reboot of the ONT in order to activate the new version
- An existing customer makes a change to their service including:
- Adding or dropping service or a phone line
- Changes to phone service may also require an update in the SIP server
- Modifying an existing service (e.g., change in data service / speed)
- Changes in data speeds may require updates to service router configuration, the ONT or both.
- A customer voluntarily disconnects all their services
- Tear out all provisioning from the EMS, the SIP server, and / or service router
- A customer needs to be disconnected for non-payment
- Turn down services in the fiber EMS to deny customers access to voice, video or data services as delivered on the ONT.
- Process is repeated everytime non-pay processing takes place which is performed once per month at minimum.
- A customer that has been disconnected for non-payment needs to have their service reinstated
- Reversal of the non-pay shutoff; occurs whenever a non-pay customer pays their bill and needs service re-instated.
- Re-enter provisioning details for customer in EMS (at minimum) and, if necessary, SIP server, and / or service router
- An MDU ONT is installed
- Individual ports on the ONT will need to be turned on and configured based the services assigned to each individual tenant/apartment.
- An ONT has to be swapped out and replaced
- All the provisioning on the old ONT has to be moved to the new ONT; for MDU ONTs this can take time to complete if all or most ports on the MDU are active
- A customer requests or drops a static IP address
- The marketing department changes the definition of a service that is already deployed
- Example: “Silver” data service is being increased from 5 MB down to 7 MB down
- An OLT’s database has to be reconstituted, in whole or in part, due to loss of data (i.e., disaster recovery)
ETI’s Intelegrate Automate was purpose-built to automate all of these functions. Intelegrate makes it much easier to address these use cases since it has all the data and features necessary to control service delivery. Starting with auto-discovery, Automate eliminates the need for a design-and-assign function because the network will inform Automate where the ONT is located. Once the network address of the ONT is known, it handles all service activation and management simply by having users – either hands-on through the user interface or through its Northbound Interface – change the services assigned to a customer. All the technical issues related to ONT port activation, VLAN assignments, ONT firmware, IP addresses, etc. are managed under the covers by Automate based on the target configuration as configured in the OSS.
